In the Bedroom
by MarisolM
Summary: What could've happened to Zuko that restrained him from showing affection? Why was he always so awkward around women? This is my answer: he walked in on his parents one night...


She forgot to tuck him in that night.

Zuko couldn't understand what had possibly been keeping his mother from coming into his bedroom for a goodnight kiss. She had always done it before like clockwork, following him and Azula a few minutes after evening study, when he would run off chasing his sister into their bedroom quarters. Sometimes, as a surprise, his mother would entertain him with some night-time reading... perhaps a new letter from their general Uncle Iroh describing the war front, or a poem taken out of her collected favorites from her homeland on the western volcanic isles.

He kept to his evening activities faithfully, practicing his _Shaolin _kicks with Azula on the corridors, then pretending to read his tutorial supplements on Earth Kingdom history with much enthusiasm while watching the glowing moon shift along his window. It was getting very late, and the royal nanny had already suggested that Azula get ready for bed twice.

"Fine... but I'm going to fetch a servant to give me a bath," Azula yawned, shutting one of her textbooks closed with her tiny seven-year-old hands. She straightened up like a lady and pulled on her brother's topknot as she headed out of Zuko's room, the nanny already out the door.

"Aren't you gonna wait for mom?" Zuko asked questionably, and little Azula raised an amused brow.

"You must be joking," Azula laughed in her innocent, childish voice. "She and Dad are probably asleep by now, stupid."

The boy frowned, annoyed by that usual bite to his sister's voice. "But she _always_ tucks us in!"

"Zuzu, don't you think you're getting a little old for such a thing?"

She giggled as she waved a brush-off hand to her brother, leaving him in a heap of thoughts and doubts as he sat in his bedroom. A few night servants had stopped by and asked to assist the boy in getting ready for bed, but Zuko refused. He didn't even look them in the face, and eventually everyone in the quarters had taken their own leave for bed. Everything was quiet... and the boy waited patiently in the night, sitting on his bed in a meditative style with his formal robes still on, clearing his mind to listen to any possible sound of familiar footsteps to his door.

By the stance of the moon outside his windows, Zuko knew it had to be past midnight. He was now beginning to worry..._ what could've kept his mother from coming this long? _ _Did something happen to her!? _

The whole room had gotten dark, almost cold by the recurring thoughts in his mind, and little Zuko could not hold himself on that bed anymore. He needed to know where his mother had gone... and so gently, he placed on his house shoes and tip-toed along the walls of the royal bed chamber corridors.

The palace was an eerie jungle of noises at night, as Zuko and Azula managed to learn by their occasional ventures for food whenever they couldn't sleep. They had explored every inch of the royal quarters together, climbing on chandeliers and using their fire-bending source to make their way into the darkest of corners... sometimes sneaking into the servant chambers and scaring them awake.

But one place they never occurred to venture into was the royal bedchamber... a grand set of golden-encrusted doors that seemed deliberately placed separately from the rest of the royal quarters. Azula didn't seem to care enough to know what went on in that chamber...but Zuko wanted to find his mother.

At least... he wanted to know she was okay.

Slowly, Zuko made his way along the narrow hallway, following a line of royal portraits with his fire-bending light in one hand. He was cautious to not make a sound, as he knew that any amount of noise could echo along the delicate marble floor. When he found the grand pair of doors, the boy quickly put his light out, bringing an ear to the door to listen intently.

It was a noise... rather, a pair of muffling voices on the other side.

Zuko couldn't tell if they were saying something, but it seemed strange to him as came in almost rhythmic tempo. As he pressed his ear closer to the delicate door, he could hear a clear moaning sound by the voice of a woman.

_Mom?_

The boy's eyelids rose at the thought. It sounded like she was being tortured.

His heartbeats quickened, feeling he had to see for himself what his mother was going through. He was already imagining a pair of Earth Kingdom spies keeping her hostage in her bedroom, hurting her physically for some kind of information. With his hands shaking nervously, Zuko took a small breath and bravely opened the door in the dark.

He could feel himself getting closer to his parents' bed... closer to the noise that he'd heard outside their room, and yet because of the darkness, Zuko couldn't make out what was going on. Only a couple dim candle-lights were lit on the back corners of the vast room, the bed being in the center of it all. As he hid behind one of their window's velvet curtains... Zuko narrowed his eyes to see the faint silhouettes two people on the bed.

Yes... it _was _his mother's voice... gasping and moaning in the blankets.

And with a full amount of effort, Zuko registered his father's voice on the other person in the bed... the person who was on top of his mother. The boy's eyes rose in fright, watching the figure of his father rocking intensively on his mother in a series of groans and breaths... as if he were hoping to push her entire body into the blankets. Zuko's heart raced as he heard his mother cry - as if in pain - while his father did nothing to stop... and the boy felt a heaviness in his throat.

It was like his father was holding himself firmly on the bed, ruthlessly trying to tame a ferocious, squirming dragon.

Zuko practically melted into the walls from the noise, hearing his father's powerful moans, his mother's voice almost whimpering as she screamed. Loudly.

He couldn't believe this was his father. No... _this had to be a monster._

"_GET OFF OF HER!_"

Zuko heard his nine-year-old voice squealing as he ran towards the bed, unable to take any more of his mother's painful screaming.

He couldn't even feel his own little fists punching the man's bare, sweat-induced back, with that ridiculous notion that he could save his mother doing so. Immediately he recognized his father's groaning voice. Zuko could hear her stiffened breaths from beneath his father's body, imagining she was being crushed.

And Ozai had been so enveloped in his movements, he didn't react right away.

When he finally huffed in exhausted breaths and recognized the little voice punching him to stop, Ozai growled. And little Zuko's eyes rose into a brilliant, terrified copper.

"_Wh– what is it_?" His mother's voice took shape in mumbles in the blankets, breathing heavily in exhaustion, unaware of the face Ozai was making to the darkness.

Zuko's heart almost stopped as his father made out the familiar face. The boy didn't understand what it was like to be consumed in pleasure. He had no idea what sort of depth that wonderful, mysterious, and lustful pool held in his father's mind that night, but all it took was one glare from Ozai's face to know he had made a huge mistake.

He knew he had angered his father. He felt the blood drain from his little face, when he was finally able to see his mother... realizing that _she_ was naked, too. She was glimmering in sweat against the candlelight. Ozai's hands were resting dangerously close to her breasts.

"_M... mom?_" the boy pleaded hopelessly to the mesh of long hair and the blankets that seemed to be elevating in breaths all on their own.

His mother's elegant, now disheveled hair squirmed in the blankets as she turned her face to see what the commotion had been about. Her hands had still been placed on Ozai's lower back, and when she finally caught sight of her son's face in the darkness... she gasped.

"_Oh my god...!_" Immediately she scrambled into a sitting position, her breasts flying every which way as she lifted some blanket to cover herself.

Ozai didn't bother to do the same.

"_You STUPID CHILD!_"

He grabbed Zuko's two arms easily with one menacing stroke. The boy yelped some "_ow!_"s involuntarily as his father lifted himself and his nudity off the dark bed... beginning to drag his little body towards of the door. Zuko couldn't move his arms, nor could he see his mother on the bed as her weak voice kept saying "_Ozai! Ozai, no-- Wait!"_ in the distance.

Ozai opened the gold-encrusted royal bedroom door and _pushed _Zuko out like a limp bag of rice.

The boy stumbled over his own feet to the dark wooden floor, his stomach so heavy now he could already feel tears brewing from his whimpering face. When he turned over, Zuko could still see his father standing in the dim doorway... naked, and full of rage. Ozai grit his teeth, his chest pumping in deep breaths over a night he still wasn't intending to finish.

"_Don't you -- EVER – sneak into this room again_."

His voice came in a slow, almost wolf-like growl to the boy... so quiet that Zuko would've believed he had imagined it. But the voice was soon met by a loud, violent _SLAM _of the door... so loud that it echoed along the walls of that darkened corridor.

So loud... that while Zuko struggled to find his way back into his sleeping quarters... he could hear the faint voices of servants stirring awake, confused. As the boy crawled into his own bed -- not bothering to take off his shoes -- he tried to recreate an image of his loving mother... her smile... her laughter... the way she elegantly wore her hair... to replace just a _fragment _of what he had seen that night.

And remembering the sounds of his father's fury on the bed, moving against his mother's lovely, graceful form... it brought a certain heaviness to his chest... and when his throat suddenly clogged up, it happened. The inevitable.

Zuko had barely been able to reach the edge of his bed when all of his confused, disgusted thoughts took form in the bowel movements of his stomach.

It was humiliating. Sickening, humiliating. For a moment he lost belief that he was a Fire Nation prince.

He tried to rid himself of that shame, effortlessly covered up the mess and smell with his extra blanket. Zuko wiped the foul taste from his mouth, feeling as fragile as glass while he massaged his stomach on the bed. It wasn't long before the emptiness in his body, before the web of images of his mother's pain... made his copper eyes well up with tears.

They sank into the cloth of his pillows, while he turned and twisted in his own blankets to try and find some warmth in that foreign, strangely empty space.

He was crying alone, in the darkness of his bedroom.

And later... just after the tears slowly drained and he closed his puffy eyes to sleep... the wooden door to his bedroom quietly creaked open.

"Zuko?"

The boy stirred, sadly and painfully opening his eyes at the sound of her gentle voice. He wondered if it was part of a dream, or _a nightmare _that was taunting him... but there she was. His mother. She had walked into his bedroom with all of her grace, and as he weakly sat up to fully see her, he noticed the red nightgown robe she usually wore at night.

It brought a faint smile to his face, seeing her. But the smell of his bowel movement had certainly not left the room, and Ursa caught it quickly as she approached the foot of his bed.

"He's asleep, now," was what she first whispered in reassurance, while one of her hands lifted to cover her nose. "Are you alright?"

The boy hugged his knees, then, as his limbs gradually started to shiver in shameful cold. Zuko's puffy eyes looked elsewhere.

"I threw up."

His voice cracked as he spoke, clasping his knees even tighter.

"Oh, Zuko..." the woman consoled her son, her voice in such empathy. She moved herself closer along the edge of his bed, not hesitating to lift his face as a few whimpers came out of it. While he still hugged his knees in shame, his mother hugged him fully... tightly... caressing his little head with her gentle fingers. "I'm so sorry I forgot to tuck you in tonight."

Zuko sobbed a little against his mother's shoulder, wiping a small tear from his eye. "I thought something happened to you."

"I know, sweetheart," she consoled gently, "and I'm sorry. But promise me that next time I forget... do not come looking for me, okay? Your father will not like it."

The boy nodded incessantly, sniffling on his mother's robe.

"Did he hurt you?" his voice quivered, to scared to speak more than a whisper..

"No, my love."

"But I heard you screaming, and he wouldn't stop."

"Zuko... you will understand this more when you're older." Ursa caressed her boy's hair once again, pulling his face back to look at him clearly. "When a husband desires to give a night of affection to his wife... sometimes it comes so strongly, she cannot help but scream. To a man, it is a sign that he is truly pleasing his wife, and it shows that he loves her."

The woman kept caressing her son's cheek, wondering if he was grasping this difficult, complicated concept despite his age. Zuko held his mother's hand at the cheek, keeping close to her essence, as if afraid that any moment she would disappear. One question was still brewing in his young mind... something he had to ask her.

"But, is it painful when he... _does that _to you?"

Ursa's eyes rose in the darkness, looking elsewhere, unprepared for that sort of question. And the boy tried to fight the darkness and read his mother's face, unprepared for the hesitancy and the complete silence that seemed to pass from her.

She had no idea what to say, and that was not like her at all.

"Mom?"

"Zuko, it's very late," she turned over to her own little miracle, her thin eyes almost glimmering in tears. "We will talk about this more again someday. Here, let me tuck you in..."

Her movements had suddenly become jittery, practically nervous as she removed her son's shoes and handed him his proper pajama robes. Zuko didn't ask anything else... he could feel the sadness in his mother's eyes... as if she had suddenly lost her voice or become a simple servant. When she covered him up in the blankets, she did it with such slow gentleness and ease, Zuko wondered if she was planning to stay there for the rest of the night.

But she didn't. She didn't even smile to his eyes as she kissed the boy 'goodnight' and quietly disappeared out of the bedroom. Zuko remained, tightly tucked in his blankets, trying to understand this connection to pain his mother had made over affection. The stench of his vomit was completely gone, and all Zuko heard was his breathing... but he still couldn't sleep.

He could not place what was keeping him from sleeping peacefully, whether it was the sadness in his mother's eyes, or the fact that she was entering that labyrinth of screams and painful affection that night. _Every night_.

_Was that supposed to be love?_ he thought. _Was that what his father expected him to be like, too?_ Zuko couldn't fathom it. He couldn't grasp how the men of this world were supposed to bring such pain to the people they loved, and how women were able to submit to it.

He couldn't bear to fall burden to such feelings and hurt any other girl, that way.

And so the little Zuko breathed his first serious breath, calmly into the night... erasing those menacing eyes of his father from his memory as he made one single promise:

_He would never fall in love._

_

* * *

_**A/N - **I always wondered, in the back of my mind, what could've made Zuko restrain himself from showing affection throughout the series? Why did he always take himself so seriously? It first occurred to me when he refused to let Song touch his scar in "Cave of Two Lovers, but it really hit me in "Tales of Ba Sing Se" when he was so hesitant to reciprocate Jin's feelings for him. When he was with Mai, their moments were a little dry... no real depth to them, you know? So... I wrote this story. It's not to say that Zuko can't ever find love, but I think _walking in on his parents _like that would acquire some mental-scarring - especially to a boy who was so close to his mom. Poor guy. --**MM**


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